Inserting Fluid Subdomains in SOLIDWORKS

In this tutorial, we outline how to apply fluid subdomains to selected inside inlet faces of a vessel.

In the tutorial video above, we can see in the assembly tree that the assembly used in our example contains two parts – a vessel and a tube.

Vessel&Tube

Before we can run an analysis on the assembly, we’ll have to specify fluid subdomains to let Flow know which fluid is flowing through each part. To do this, I’ll switch over to the Flow study tree, right click on “Fluid Subdomains” and select “Insert Fluid Subdomain.”

InsertFluidSubdomain

In this example we specified both air and water as project fluids and so this should appear in the study tree by default, but if it doesn’t, we can easily customize the tree to add it.


For the selection, we’ll use “Select Other,” to select the inside inlet face of the vessel. This will be the air subdomain, so we’ll make sure the fluid type is set to air.

SetToAir

Under the “Thermodynamic Parameters” section, we’ll adjust the temperature to 400 K for this example and click the green check. Now we can insert a second fluid subdomain for water in the pipe.

We’ll use Select Other again to select another inside inlet face and for fluid type we will uncheck the box for “Air,” use the drop down to switch to “Liquids” and make sure that “Water” is selected.

SelectOther2

We’ll leave the default temperature and pressure and when we click the green check, the fluid subdomains are complete.

Complete

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About the Author


Sam Sanchez is an Applications Engineer with SolidProfessor and a CSWP. Sanchez is an alumni of UC San Diego, and in her free time enjoys 3D printing and hanging out with her dog Ruby. You can see more training videos on a wide range of CAD, CAM & BIM topics at www.solidprofessor.com.